Polyend Play - First Thoughts

[@andycordy5190]

Thank you. It's amazing how far you've got in only a short time. Really helpful. I guess you're holding off on the full review.

[@craigtracy4396]

I like it! Yes, it’s buggy. But wow, what a great little box to have in the world! Congratulations Polyend. Hope you guys finish and finesse the Play to its fullest. Looks fantastic!

[@r2worksee]

Has there been any mentions of adding timestretch? Kinda crazy how rare that is for samplers these days

[@_adrienmccarthy7473]

I’ve definitely had the same issues with the live record stuff. I just pick a sample, place it on one square and then go into live mode and record from there and I’ll just erase that first instance I put down later. Not a great workaround but I find it to be more consistent. Also mot a fan of the vertical keyboard, your suggestion of laying it across the top is great. Overall a fun device, very enjoyable but def room to grow.

[@machineagevoodoo2106]

Agreed! The keyboard mode could easily take up the whole grid while active (why not?) Let's hope for / ask for that:)

[@sodiumlights]

Yes! ive been hoping you would make a video telling us your thoughts on the Play. Look forward to watching this tomorrow. I've always valued your clear-sighted opinions on gear, and I imagine it will be no different this time (as I've been considering buying it). Cheers.

[@sodiumlights]

no mixdown though?

[@tarekith]

@@sodiumlights What do you mean no mixdown?

[@sodiumlights]

@@tarekith export a 'song' as a wav/mp3 file.

[@tarekith]

No, nothing like that at all, though I would never really expect it for something like this either tbh.

[@sodiumlights]

@@tarekith cheers for the reply. Yeah, I kinda forgot it was more groovebox, and that the Tracker dealt with more of the production side. You noted how good the visibility of the buttons/screen performs outside. I'm beginning to think you are literally the only single user/reviewer who takes portable devices outside!

[@MarkKunoff]

New “bug fix only” firmware 1.0.1 was released on Aug 19 2022. So far so good!

[@tarekith]

Good to know! I installed it already, but have been backpacking so no time to give it a try yet!

[@TheFlippertube]

It's great to hear your feedback. I have the Tracker and found that it was spec'd with a tight tolerance such that MIDI would choke. I imagine this tight spec kept the price down, but it's undeniably something that needs to be front of mind when considering the options. It sounds like you're finding similar issues here.

[@simonc8265]

Trying to work this... Mc707 share a lot of features....with a few more... The main selling point is the immediacy of the pattern generation... But not sure that balances out the cost...anyone convince me otherwise? Great review. Love how you break thinks down.

[@chuckvicious]

In midi mode, it has 'Jack Channel' and 'usb channel ' selection . Isn't that per track? So can't you control 8 different instruments at once , separately? Like I thought that's the whole point of this thing, but you're saying it cant?

[@angularfpv6572]

It can. Several demos out there that explain this. I think he meant different channels on one track.

[@angularfpv6572]

Chuck - I have PLAY now and understand what Tarekith is saying. He is correct. There is no way to set the channel per row (yet), only per pad. But midi program per pad is super awesome.

[@thehowlingterror]

It's not battery powered but fine from a battery pack. Can sequence 8 tracks of external MIDI gear with handy CC mapping per channel.

[@VJFranzK]

Thanks for good discussion! Suppose you like volume faders per track, SP1200, TR8s etc. is there an easy way to do that here? Would I be happy with this do you think? (Probably there is a way to get hardware faders via MIDI i'd expect...)

[@angularfpv6572]

No midi specification at all! So no external control of volumes. This is mainly by design - its totally a per step sort of affair. See my comment in this thread regarding other very serious issues. Midi channel and program change per step is very powerful however.

[@VJFranzK]

@@angularfpv6572 woah! so it's kind of a new game...

[@angularfpv6572]

This comment was made with a different account of mine for FPV drones. Check out the comment by Mark Kunoff. 😉

[@MarkKunoff]

I got Play a few days ago. Live Rec on midi tracks is wonky AF. After a cycle of recording, any notes you play are transposing what you recorded on the first cycle. I have overdub recording set to ON. --- I also have a damaged project folder which has missing samples in the sample pool after power down and back up. The pool is using about 50 percent of the space, but refuses to load up any new samples I added to the pool before power down/up. This bug is particularly frustrating since you can no longer expand on the sound palette of that project.

[@machineagevoodoo2106]

Great overview. And yes it totally deselects the track when in live record mode so that you can't record. Also what I really miss is the ability to just play a sample on any button when scrolling through the list of samples. It could easily be done that the sample is played back by either pressing the sample knob itself or the screen buttons. Now you need to commit to entering in a step in the actual sequencer...

[@tarekith]

Thanks for confirming you're experience the play buttons issues too, some people were acting like I was crazy when I said that :) And yes, it could be a LOT easier to select a sample (Pick) and then put it where you want (Play). Hopefully we see a fix soon!

[@rfwhyte]

I couldn't deal with the touch sensitive knobs. Just way too many unintentional inputs. A lot easier to get along with the Play with the touch sensitivity turned off for me.

[@rorz999]

Is there any way to adjust the sensitivity?

[@tarekith]

@@rorz999 No, the only thing you can do is turn off the double tap functionality. Personally I've mostly gotten used to the touch knobs, it's certainly quicker to see what your parameter values are. Just wish it didn't overwrite the Randomize knob settings if you haven't hit Save yet.

[@Dolores5000]

Best vid on this unit thanks!

[@katelikesrectangles]

great details! thank you

[@VJFranzK]

11:50 autosave every change?? many iPad apps do this, but it's a BAD feature. We know to do a manual Save if we want to! and otherwise, not.

[@Terry.Hamilton]

Off-topic, but how is the MC-707 sample set coming along?

[@tarekith]

95% done, I just needed to take a break from it. I also have a new Octatrack set ready to record, just waiting for the portable interface/recorder to arrive next week. Very busy here lately!

[@hypebeastdad]

Nice review! Interesting name! My is Tarikh

[@ryanvincentjaeger]

Too bad you can't access the SD card via USB. I'm assuming there is no multi-channel audio output over USB as well?

[@tarekith]

Right now the only thing the USB port is used for is charging.

[@marco-darcangelo]

@@tarekith Wrong, you can pass Midi through it it has Midi USB and obviously Midi Jack all in the settings. the Only bit I found that is NO Multichannel so you wont' record say from an external sequencer or midi clips from live 3 different channels at once

[@tarekith]

@@marco-darcangelo fair enough. Like I said I’m the video a couple times I haven’t used the midi side of things on the Play, just not what I bought it for.

[@marco-darcangelo]

@@tarekith I'm not overexcited about at the moment for several things such as the side keyboard and the way the sample gets assigned to the trax or the Autogroove that is in fact a Midi template rather than an Algorythm. ( hopefully in the future firmware, density and lenght? ) A groovebox that does at the moment exactly what it says on the Tin.. Play samples with a good range of FX's for performance ( MC 101 / 707 and Circuit Rhythm alike ) and like many of us will wait further ahead were the box will have a permanent place and use. Sound Crafting wise I'm not expecting much truely.. wavetables? Polyend Knows better :)

[@ildafons]

Even Elektron Model Samples has class compliant USB so you can record audio to your DAW with USB cable and it is twice cheaper than Play and files transfer/backup functions are more comfortable with USB port. Using just memory card seems pretty old school.

[@mojodrum3215]

I have been creating my own sound packs and it’s been a lot of work. The challenge l have is to not exceed the 255 samples and the size of the packs which l have found to be a max of 80 mb.

[@tarekith]

You sure you don’t mean 30MB? That’s the sample size limit, at least with mono 16/44.1.

[@mojodrum3215]

@@tarekith Not sure per sample but l tried different size packs with many samples and noticed that 80mb was the max. I also had to remove some samples from the packs because they exceeded the 255 limit even though the packs were less than 80mb. I created 40 packs and with the modifications they all load perfectly.

[@vinmar_music]

I picked this up the other day and I’m pretty disappointed so far. I’m comparing to Syntakt and Deluge, which are slightly more expensive but I feel the value is far better with those choices. I typically use either standalone, or control multiple synths / devices with deluge. At first I thought maybe it was just the sounds that weren’t hitting it for me, so I added some sample packs of my own. A little improvement - but not enough. Live play is pretty bad as you point out. Midi I was super excited to see if there was some kind of performance associated, but no. So outside of some interesting organic stuff, I’m not feeling it. I’ve spent a lot of time with it and the immediate gratification I received from Deluge, Syntakt, Cycles, and most of the other devices I have is far greater. I’m trying to find it’s sweet spot but mostly it has a few things I wish were on the Deluge… screen… variations… performance.

[@simonc8265]

Thankyou. its not far the deluge price bracket....and for portability it feels like you get a bit more options with the deluge...... both look like great options but in terms of desert island / we need to leave this house in 30 minutes kit.....the deluge looks like the go to

[@vinmar_music]

@@simonc8265 Absolutely on the Deluge... I will say that I spent more time with Play since that comment, and for me, its been a fun front end to my Deluge or Syntakt, mostly for doing percussion work, using performance features, and generating unique midi that I then stored on Deluge or Syntakt to further mess with. It does a few things the Deluge can't, but nowhere near the capability of the Deluge. I was all set to return it, but given the use case I found, and supposedly a big feature update is coming in Nov, I'll hold onto it for a bit. I posted a video of a one I did on Sunday of Polyend->Syntakt.

[@psypher19111911]

I have bought a lot of gear and I have rarely been so much in doubt before buying. It seems like some strange decisions have been made at Polyend!? Why is there no "Only manual save" option in the settings (so it never saved after pressing stop and "corrupting" your project - very easy to implement)? Why is there no serious line out with real 6.3 mm connectors (this is not a pocket operator)? Why can't you "record" the performance (record performance automation / export to stems)? Why is the filehandling so slow and annoying (might fast become a product to just fill your shelves)? Octatrack has for over 10 years been able to play samples directly from the memorycard - couldn't that have been used instead of loading all the samples or at least some performance-optimized hybrid between those two ways of doing it? Can´t you play different external gear from the Polyend Play using different tracks to different synths - I HOPE I MISUNDERSTOOD SOMETHING!? I find it it expensive with those BIG errors/clumsy features and some of them is classic beta-release issues that we as the customers have to pay and pray that they fix - pay for 100% of a product and maybe only ever recieve 50% of it! 😕 Very good review and nice to see a lot of the things that everybody else skipped in their review covered in yours - that gives a much fuller understanding of the product. To me the beat fill, the big overview of all tracks and the performance mode is the big pros, but I don't know if they are big enough to compensate for the rest!? Have they addressed some of the things in their new Firmware update? Thanks for a great review - sorry that this got a bit longer than I wanted it to! :-)

[@olivierf.4931]

So basically it's an 800 euros randomizer! Cool.

[@jerem680]

Sensitive knobs is a mess, sound quality, file manager, cutoff resonnace same f knob, no step lenght..... Personally didn't like it